Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to notify the committee that I will bring forward an amendment on Report Stage. It is appropriate that I alert the committee to that fact at this stage because my amendment is relevant to this particular section of the Bill. On Report Stage, I will bring forward an amendment to section 5 to amend the date on which the committee must submit its recommendation and report to the Minister. As the Bill is currently drafted, which colleagues will know, the date specified is 15 July of each year to which the examination relates. I propose to amend it to "the third Tuesday of July of the year to which the examination relates". It had been my intention to bring the Bill back to the Seanad on 9 July. I have been informed that this will not be possible due to logistical printing reasons. Instead, it is my intention to revert to the Seanad on 13 or 14 July to have the legislation finalised. Clearly, this situation will present difficulties in having the Bill on the Statute Book on or before 15 July. Therefore, I have decided to move the reporting period back by four working days. I think it is safer to do so given the logistical challenges that we have at this point in time.

The amendment also has the advantage of removing a specific date from the Bill and providing a day that will fit in with the Government's schedule. I mean that I am anxious to make sure that the date on which the report and recommendation would be made falls on a weekday, preferably on a day on which the Cabinet traditionally meets which would be a Tuesday. It would be good practice to have that aspect catered for. I wish to stress that my amendment is not in any way associated with the work of the Low Pay Commission, or where it is at, at the moment. The commission is making good progress and the minor change I propose is purely for the logistical reasons that I outlined earlier. I shall table this minor technical amendment on Report Stage. I simply wanted to flag my intention to do so because it is relevant to this section.